The Assembly of the COMECE Working Group on Ethics met on Tuesday 18 May 2021 to exchange on the new EU Green Digital Certificate, highlighting the need not to exclude anyone from participating in social life.
Screenshot of the virtual meeting. (Credit: COMECE)
Members of the COMECE Working Group assessed the EU reactions to the COMECE-FAFCE document “The Elderly and the Future of Europe”, released on December 2020. The group also exchanged views on a new document on Financial Ethics to be published in the next months with the aim of suggesting more ethical national financial responses to the pandemic.
The meeting was also an opportunity to discuss the new EU Green Digital Certificate, which intends to reduce the restrictions to travelling imposed by governments to tackle the spread of Coronavirus in the European Union.
The COMECE Working Group on Ethics welcomed this EU initiative and the mechanism that will allow Member States to regulate social responsibility and autonomy of vaccinated and non-vaccinated citizens, without excluding anyone.
Close attention was also paid to the so-called EP ‘Matic Report’ on sexual and reproductive health and rights in the EU in the frame of women’s health. The Working Group criticized the concept of abortion present in this report which considers it as “an essential health service that should be available to everyone”.
In this context, the participants of the meeting highlighted that “human life, from the beginning, including unborn life, possesses its own dignity, and the right to be protected and neither European Union legislation nor the European Convention on Human Rights provide for a right to abortion”.
The members of the Working Group also discussed the Conference on the Future of Europe, which started on 9th May 2021 and highlighted the importance that COMECE and other Church actors contributed to the conference also on ethical issues based on European values.
The Working Group on Ethics is chaired by COMECE General Secretary Fr. Manuel Barrios Prieto and is composed of experts in the field of ethics delegated by the EU Bishops’ Conferences.